TBT Preview: Carmen’s Crew vs The Money Team

Two down. Four to go. That is how Carmen’s Crew can look at their TBT journey thus far as they head into the regional semifinals on Tuesday night. The Ohio State alumni team has held up their No. 1 seed so far and have looked solid heading into the Sweet 16 to face the No.5 seed The Money Team.

In the first round, they defeated Mid-American Unity, A Mid-American Conference alumni team, 77-65 after a not as impressive first half. Then, in the second round, they faced Men of Mackey, a Purdue alumni team that most people thought would give them some serious trouble and some even picked them to lose due to their size.

But the big guys stepped up for Carmen’s Crew and made life tough on Purdue’s big men and won the game 80-69.

Jeff Gibbs stole the show, using his 6-foot-2 frame to disrupt and antagonize Isaac Haas and Robbie Hummel all game completely and utterly.

(Yes, I just plugged my own tweet, deal with it)

William Buford controlled the scoring, recording 19 points and Gibbs added 11. Evan Ravenel scored a key 10 points off the bench and Jon Diebler did the thing he does, knocking down three, three-pointers in the second quarter to give Carmen’s Crew some cushion on Men of Mackey.

With the first two wins, Carmen’s Crew will now move onto face the No. 5 seed The Money Team on Tuesday at 9 pm EST on ESPN. The winner of this game will move onto the regional final in Dayton on Saturday.

The Money Team is a Floyd Mayweather funded team and have been in the TBT before, recording an 0-1 record. They are self-proclaimed “back with a vengeance in TBT 2021” and so far, they have shown it.

They have been impressive scoring the basketball, averaging 89.5 points per game in their first two contests. They defeated the No. 12 seed The Region 86-71 in the first round and took down the No. 4 seed Team Hines 93-76.

Ball State alumni Jarrod Jones led their first game with 24 points and Jeff Ledbetter scored 26 points in their second game. Similar to Carmen’s Crew, TMT has a deep team full of high level scorers. They can hit you from all three levels at an elite level.

Also, with Team Hines going down, that means three of the top four seeds in the Columbus regional have been eliminated, leaving Carmen’s Crew as the only top four seed left. The No. 2 seed Red Scare, the Dayton alumni team, lost to the Miami alumni team Category 5 76-69 and the No. 3 seed Zip Em Up, the Xavier alumni team, lost to Blue Collar U, a Buffalo alumni team, 93-83.

Prediction: Carmen’s Crew 84, The Money Team 75

This will be a game where Carmen’s Crew has to score the ball successfully. Against Men of Mackey, they struggled scoring in the first half but used their strong defense to stifle Men of Mackey to make sure the game did not get out of hand early.

In this one, TMT will score and they will score often. If Carmen’s Crew struggles out of the gate again, they will likely have much more of a mountain to climb than they did on Sunday afternoon.

However, this is also the best defense TMT has faced by far and the duo of Aaron Craft and Shannon Scott has been making life hard on all the guards they have faced so far and TMT will not be an exception.

I think this will be a back and forth game and then in the late third quarter, early fourth quarter, Carmen’s Crew will go on a patented 14-4 run and pull away slightly and just enough to take the momentum into the Elam Ending.

This will be a great one as a trip to Dayton and one step closer to one million dollars is on the line.